The Cloning Bandwagon

Abstract

Thanks to Keith Campbell [1], Dolly the wonder sheep has arrived in Scotland, at he modest price of $750,000. Mankind has been thus dragged yet nearer to the Huxleyean Brave New World. To an already contentious, consumeristic and cruel world, the spectre of manufacturing Hitiers and Huns on a clonal scale is frightening. No wonder discerning journals - to wit, the July- Sept 1997 Issues in Medical Ethics - are full of debates on the ethicality of new genetic discoveries and applications thereof. The ethical bandwagon would make more sense if the geneticists and ethicists were to bear in mind some fundamental principles that govern the field of genetics. This done, our expectations - social, medical, financial - from genetic adventurism would be trimmed to size, and our fears from genetic misadventurism would be pruned as well.